Alternate Payment Methods Please

[JnsRich]

nuhi I am one of the many users of your marvelous software who have been unable to buy it and use it because of the payment hurdles set up by your payment provider "2Checkout.com" (powered by Verifone)
I've been a fan of your software since the nLite version for XP and I always wanted to at least DONATE to you for your hard work.

Now that you have put up the NTLite for sale for a very reasonable sum of money, I was trying to purchase it from the past many years. Not only myself but many of my friends in college also (almost 50 or more) always want to purchase your software (mainly as a show of support for your hard work).

But whenever we try to pay with our credit cards, your payment gateway provider (2checkout) nearly always flags it as a "fraud transaction" and they demand that we should upload our credit card statement and also a government ID.
This has been happening from many years.
In some countries it is fine to share the govt ID proof openly.

But in many countries like the US and Australia it is a very, very bad idea to upload one's credit card statement and passport copies since when (I will not say "if", but "when" ) nearly all these payment companies end up getting hacked, they leave all our private info exposed and to be sold on the Dark Web).
Some of my friends went ahead and uploaded their passport copies and credit card statements. They eventually found their info to be sold: whether it was due to this payment provider or not, we do not know.

Many other sensible users decided not to give in to the demands of the so-called "fraud experts" of 2checkout and did not upload our documents.
We end up (very sadly, I must say), having to either use the pirated copies of software found shared across the web, or live without access to your software.

A MAJORITY of users want to BUY and use your software. Please make this possible by setting up an alternate payment method for like through BitCoin for example. Setting up a Bitcoin payment address takes just five minutes or less and it would greatly improve sales.
It would also allow users like us who the payment gateways hold at ransom to get at our personal documents to pay for and make a purchase. Converting the BTC into fiat currency is not a problem these days and will work out a lot cheaper for you too.

Hope you will consider this seriously nuhi
-Your great fan

 

[nuhi]

Thank you for the feedback.

I did notice that 2checkout is not relaxed towards privacy oriented users, be it VPNs or intentionally faking data to increase their privacy.
But that protection is a feature, not a bug - let me explain:

They have a large database and a complex fraud detection system.
If something wasn't entered right or you are hiding your location, we cannot do our taxes.
I'm not sure that anonymous payment is legally possible any more, since for tax purposes it is a must knowing at least from where the client is.
Once flagged, they contact you for location proof before allowing the transaction.
The ironic conclusion is, if you weren't hiding the basics, they would not ask you for an ID.

Also obviously there are many fraudulent people out there, and chargebacks are not free, so 2checkout is paranoid because of that even more.

Potentially might have better luck with the current checkout via Paypal, and I'll keep my eyes open for a better alternative.

 

[JnsRich]

First... A very Happy New Year to you!

Thank you for the answer.

I did notice that 2checkout is not relaxed towards privacy oriented users, be it VPNs or intentionally faking data to increase their privacy.

Well, none of us who tried to purchase used a VPN or fake data. Obviously we know that online payments fail in such cases. So for payments we just used the real IP and details.

It is only in the case of 2checkout.com that they tend to ask for ID details and credit card statements for almost all the buyers. At least it was so for at least ~50 co-students of mine from my college who tried to make the purchase over the past several months (and failed).

Anecdotally, a few users who provided the ID and credit card statements found their cards hacked after a few weeks. It is possible that the support staff who (now) have the ID card scanned copy as well as the credit card details can now either sell the details or use the card at a later date? This happened far many times for us to attribute it to coincidence.

They have a large database and a complex fraud detection system.

That was in the past. Not anymore. Now they just have some support staff who speak broken English and who demand the ID card details for almost all their customers who use the gateway. I speak from experience of at least 50 people who tried to use this gateway.

The ironic conclusion is, if you weren't hiding the basics, they would not ask you for an ID.

Not really. Actually ironically, I've received suggestions from online users at another forum that the only way they managed to bypass this was to use a residential VPN rather than their own IP address, because most of the IP addresses in my country are re-used by the ISP and therefore possibly blacklisted.

Potentially might have better luck with the current checkout via Paypal

The Paypal checkout is also handled by the 2checkout gateway and so has the same problem.

Sadly, most of my friends are using the pirated copies of your software for only one reason: frustration after being unable to buy despite repeated attempts from their side. I can stand testimony to this fact after my father has been unsuccessfully trying to get my purchase processed from the last 1-2 days for your software.

I'd told my dad that you were offering the discount price of 31 Euros for Christmas-New Year and so we tried to avail it. The transaction is still stuck despite my dad having not spoofed anything.

Please do not be of the impression that the 2checkout provider is a sophisticated one. This was in the past. Now they are suspected to be stealing the users' ID and other details and then selling them online in underground forums.
I hope you can seriously consider alternative payment options like BTC which most other software sellers also provide...

Thank you so much for your consideration.